Debunking Planet X - By the Numbers
Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2005 2:07 am
I’ve recently gotten involved in a Planet X thread on the GLP forum.
http://godlikeproductions.com/bbs/messa ... 72&topic=3
Thankfully I’ve never gotten involved in such discussions in the past so I knew little about Planet X. Much to my amazement I was told Planet X is currently right in front of the Sun shrouded in a cloud of dust. Of course anyone who knows anything about celestial mechanics, which I do, will tell you it is impossible for a planet to maintain such a position indefinitely. I was also given information about the planet itself, such as orbital period, diameter, and mass. Being an engineering geek I decided to put paper to pencil and perform a few calculations.
Below is a copy of a post I just made to the GLP thread. I’m reproducing a copy of it here in case anyone wants to use the information in a future debate. Sadly, I doubt the data will have much affect on those reading at GLP. The Planet X believers over there have very little grasp on reality. I think some of them deny science even exists.
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Here’s something for you to ponder…
According to Zetatalk and other Internet sources, Planet X supposedly has a period of 3,657 years. If true, this gives PX a semi-major axis of about 35 billion kilometers. Based on what I’ve read in this thread, PX is supposedly somewhere near the Sun and inside the orbit of Earth. (It has to be inside Earth’s orbit to appear in front of the Sun as some have claimed.) I don’t know how close PX is supposed to get to the Sun, so I’ll make a guess and say it has a perihelion of 0.5 AU, or 74.8 million kilometers. According to User #78/68, “the Zetas via Nancy say Planet X is 4 times larger than Earth in diameter and is 14 times more in mass”. So here’s what we allegedly know about Planet X:
Diameter = 51,000 km
Mass = 8.36x10^25 kg
Density = 1.20 g/cc
Orbital period = 3,657 years
Semi-major axis = 35,440,000,000 km
Eccentricity = 0.99789
The diameter and mass are nearly the same as the planet Uranus. Uranus is a faint naked eye object in our night sky; however, if you were to move it to, say, the orbit of Mars, it would outshine everything in the sky except the Sun and Moon.
The science of celestial mechanics also tells us that PX would be racing along at nearly 60 kilometers per second as it reaches perihelion (0.5 AU). If we saw it cross the face of the Sun during its perihelion passage, this transit would take less than 4.5 hours. PX would slow little as it speeds through the inner solar system. It would cross Earth’s orbit, swing past the Sun, and then head outward, again crossing Earth’s orbit. The elapsed time between the two Earth orbit crossings would be only 78 days, during which PX would revolve halfway around the Sun.
How do I know all this? Because I’ve committed a great deal of my lifetime to studying the science, and because I’ve performed the calculations. Planet X’s passage through the inner solar system would be very rapid and short lived. This is based on the information provided by Nancy Lieder herself. All this talk of PX loitering around by the Sun is utter lunacy. It is a scientific impossibility.
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EDIT: The above has been revised per the following:
1) Orbital period changed from 3,600 years to 3,657 years.
2) Assumed perihelion changed from 1/3 AU to 1/2 AU.
http://godlikeproductions.com/bbs/messa ... 72&topic=3
Thankfully I’ve never gotten involved in such discussions in the past so I knew little about Planet X. Much to my amazement I was told Planet X is currently right in front of the Sun shrouded in a cloud of dust. Of course anyone who knows anything about celestial mechanics, which I do, will tell you it is impossible for a planet to maintain such a position indefinitely. I was also given information about the planet itself, such as orbital period, diameter, and mass. Being an engineering geek I decided to put paper to pencil and perform a few calculations.
Below is a copy of a post I just made to the GLP thread. I’m reproducing a copy of it here in case anyone wants to use the information in a future debate. Sadly, I doubt the data will have much affect on those reading at GLP. The Planet X believers over there have very little grasp on reality. I think some of them deny science even exists.
*************************************************************
Here’s something for you to ponder…
According to Zetatalk and other Internet sources, Planet X supposedly has a period of 3,657 years. If true, this gives PX a semi-major axis of about 35 billion kilometers. Based on what I’ve read in this thread, PX is supposedly somewhere near the Sun and inside the orbit of Earth. (It has to be inside Earth’s orbit to appear in front of the Sun as some have claimed.) I don’t know how close PX is supposed to get to the Sun, so I’ll make a guess and say it has a perihelion of 0.5 AU, or 74.8 million kilometers. According to User #78/68, “the Zetas via Nancy say Planet X is 4 times larger than Earth in diameter and is 14 times more in mass”. So here’s what we allegedly know about Planet X:
Diameter = 51,000 km
Mass = 8.36x10^25 kg
Density = 1.20 g/cc
Orbital period = 3,657 years
Semi-major axis = 35,440,000,000 km
Eccentricity = 0.99789
The diameter and mass are nearly the same as the planet Uranus. Uranus is a faint naked eye object in our night sky; however, if you were to move it to, say, the orbit of Mars, it would outshine everything in the sky except the Sun and Moon.
The science of celestial mechanics also tells us that PX would be racing along at nearly 60 kilometers per second as it reaches perihelion (0.5 AU). If we saw it cross the face of the Sun during its perihelion passage, this transit would take less than 4.5 hours. PX would slow little as it speeds through the inner solar system. It would cross Earth’s orbit, swing past the Sun, and then head outward, again crossing Earth’s orbit. The elapsed time between the two Earth orbit crossings would be only 78 days, during which PX would revolve halfway around the Sun.
How do I know all this? Because I’ve committed a great deal of my lifetime to studying the science, and because I’ve performed the calculations. Planet X’s passage through the inner solar system would be very rapid and short lived. This is based on the information provided by Nancy Lieder herself. All this talk of PX loitering around by the Sun is utter lunacy. It is a scientific impossibility.
*************************************************************
EDIT: The above has been revised per the following:
1) Orbital period changed from 3,600 years to 3,657 years.
2) Assumed perihelion changed from 1/3 AU to 1/2 AU.